Driverless vehicles - Will they change cycling in any ways?

[PedallingNowhereSlowly]

I strongly disagee; the missing bolts could have been detected had there been better testing.

I'm making a distinction between the testing of the manufactured design and the process/QA that takes place after resolving a defect.

The manufactured design is adequately tested. Door plugs such as that involved in this incident are nothing new have have not historically caused any aviation incidents. The problem was a procedural one that meant that there was no inspection to ensure the bolts had been fitted.

It was curious for this to be brought up in comparison to driving automation and driverless vehicles. A much better comparison would have been the initial implementation of the MCAS system in the 737 MAX which sadly lead to a couple of much more significant disasters.

I think it is right to treat driverless vehicles with caution. As we've seen with the Horizon Post-Office scandal, it's possible for people to make a real hash of things in terms of writing software - some of the issues centre on code that is mathmatically wrong and should never have made it past peer review. If these types of mistakes are repeated with the software used to control driverless cars, then we are sure to see road deaths, disproportionately affecting vulnerable road users as a result.

If, however, the software is developed with a strong emphasis on QA and stringent real world testing then I think on balance, driverless cars will be safer given the incredibly poor standard of driving we all witness on a regular basis.

I also think driverless cars have the potential, indirectly, to save lives through reduced emissions. Human drivers waste an awful lot of fuel in haste under the mistaken belief they are saving precious seconds on their overall journey time, when in reality they spend more time queuing at the next junction or obstacle.

The other big advantage of driverless cars, is that they could make it possible to change the ownership model, where by fewer cars are privately owned. This is because they will add to the cost of a car. But it will also be because people can summon a driverless taxi as/when needed.

In reality, given how people seem to be so willing to get into debt to buy a car - or lease one at considerably monthly expense - I doubt that this will happen. But it's a nice thought. Anything that potentially draws people away from the 'you are what you drive' mentality is welcome, in my view.

My real hope is that we see more and more people eschewing private cars entirely, be they automated or conventional, in favour of bikes, e-bikes, e-cargo bikes, public transport and car clubs.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I have never had any "assistance" things on my car until recently

Well - the one before last did have automatic lights and wipers but that was all.

This one has lane assist, cruise control which adjusts itself based on traffic, automatic sensing wipers and collision avoidance
and probably other stuff that I have not found yet!!!

Anyway 0 the lane assist work fine - comes on sometimes if I move right in my lane a bit to stay well clear of the inside lane and if the outside lane is empty - expected
and it did behave a bit weird when I was recently driving around country roads in Scotland - and it has a couple of time engaged due to a tarmac seam in the road rather than a white line
But it is gentle and has less effect than a bit of rough road - I generally don;t really notice it

The cruise control is useful - means I can spend more time looking at the road around me rather than glancing at the speedo all the time
but it has some "intelligence" which is mostly good.
It will watch the car ahead and if it slows down then it will keep the distance correct based on how I set it
This can be a problem if someone sees a decent gap and moves into it. If this happens the system will look at the speed of the new "car in front" and if it is faster than me then all is fine.
If it is slower than me on occasion it has slowed me down rather too dramatically - I have learnt to avoid this by predicting it and braking slightly to switch it off and increase the distance myself - which I would probably have done anyway - but less dramatically than the system would.
It should be noticed that this happened once when someone cut in REALLY badly and the system reacted before I could have. My wife asked if that was me or the system - but I would have braked anyway.

It does seem to mostly work OK - but not perfectly - worst thing is that if you accelerate over the set cruising speed - then if you take your foot off the accelerator then it brakes down to the set spped in spite of there being no car in front - this is dangerous as a car behind would not expect me to suddenly brake when there is an empty road ahead of me!
I have learnt this and now know how to avoid it but it should not happen.
Basically the "intelligent assistance" is not intelligent enough - i.e.
not intelligent at all and the programming does not consider enough edge conditions!

If I have to learn to adapt to the limitations of the system then the system is not good enough - I spent enough years writing computer software to know that the system should help the user - and not force the users into adapting to the software's limitations!

Anyway another example is back to the automatic wipers
In my previous plus one car the wipers were automatic. If the sensed rain then they came on for a single sweep - reset and start again.
This car has an "improved" system where the sensor detects the amount of rain and sets the speed of the wipers and the setting of intermittant wipe depending on the amount it is raining
AND - the driver can set the sensitivity of the system
now - if it was done properly why does the driver have a sensitivity setting??
as expected, when I use it I am constantly changing the sensitivity because the wipers are not sweeping often enough - or are on way too much and going at max speed in slight drizzle!

Basically, I reckon the hardware in the car is too slow to be able to cope with a fully intelligent system - and the driver is expected to learn to drive to its limitations.
Fortunately the assiste systems are good enough - just about.
However, it does have a multitude of warning systems - which beep.
often I have no idea what the beep is for which makes it useless. There MAY be an indication on the dashboard but I would be better off looking in the mirror rather than being distracted by something flashing up on the dash.
I have switched most of these off as they are either distracting or worse than useless.
The ones I have left are OK - like warning me if there is a car passing me on my left/right when I signal left/right or if a car suddenly cuts on very close behind me - which oftne happens at one roundabout near me!


ANyway - base don all that - I do worry about cars where this is extended to fully automation. It requires a lot of testing and I am not confident that the companies doing it are capable of analysing all conditions as well as a human can!!

 

[icowden]

It's getting better:-
https://x.com/Tesla/status/1772718089269809499?s=20

 

[classic33]

It's getting better:-
https://x.com/Tesla/status/1772718089269809499?s=20

Even Tesla say that it still requires the drivers supervision.
And for $13,000 upgrade I'd be expecting a lot more than that.

 

[mjr]

Actual footage of the future when we live on Mars and what could go wrong...


View: https://youtu.be/eWgrvNHjKkY?si=iH8p8WAc16P-SHqp

Scene is set on Earth, not Mars. The taxis on Mars in that are still human driven, because Earth gets all the profits and Mars is basically run by a tech bro slum lord.

 

[mjr]

I suspect, if you do that, you will not become an ancient pedestrian

The Urbanist Agenda: Living with Self-Driving Cars (with Bike Curious)

Episode webpage: https://art19.com/shows/the-urbanist-agenda

Media file: https://rss.art19.com/episodes/9e71...VQ=--bba5bdd77df5f5806138bf3e7d4615ea7f8e6a75
discussed an incident where an autonomous car braked for a person in front of it, lessening the impact, but then once it couldn't see her, it attempted to drive on, with the person trapped under the car.

I think autonomous cars are still far from ready.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I have never had any "assistance" things on my car until recently

No automatic choke, no power steering, no electric windows, no ABS, no traction control?

It’s easy to forget the assistance already there.

 

[icowden]

Even Tesla say that it still requires the drivers supervision.

Yes. That cos "legal reasons". Translated - some Americans are so dumb, they won't realise that FSD still isn't perfect and still needs a human to intervene upon occasion.

 

[DRM]

That is another 'benefit' I have already seen pushed in media. The idea is that multi vehicle lorry / commercial convoys can travel really close together, following decisions (braking, turning, suchlike) made by the vehicle at the very front, which should pass the calculations and actions back down the roadtrain, with all the rest obeying. This means fuel will be saved as well as no longer paying drivers, so profits can go up.

I saw this roadtrain concept challenged somewhere (it was some while back, so cant remember but was probably in a newspaper) as it would mean cars and small commercial vehicles might be physically blocked out/dominated by whats good for the multi vehicle commercial roadtrains. The response at the time was that roadtrain length would probabally be limited to X vehicles (number/length was not specified) and they would have to travel with some gap (unspecified) between each roadtrain, to allow other vehicles to enter and leave the road. Also of course people trying to cross A roads etc may find problems, if this concept is not just for motorways - it was not clear.

It sounds like a multi pile up waiting to happen, as it was not clear what response would take place by other vehicles if the first vehicle in the roadtrain was not aware of a problem occurring further back.

Also if there is some possibility of cars and light commercials having to fight for road access etc what hope for cyclists and indeed mopeds or motorcyclists?

Would air currents from mass roadtrain drafting have any additional effect on cyclists, mopeds etc?

I cannot for the life of me see how driverless trucks can work, all this driving in convoy rubbish is a red herring, can you imagine the carnage when one of them suffers a blowout or mechanical failure? the real problems start when a delivery has tight. badly placed loading bays, the ones that skilled humans have to do several shunts to access, which loading bay to go to ? how do you instruct a 44 tonne robot such detail, wrong delivery address, then how do you refuel the trampers that are out all week, or even better on continental work, how do they disconnect the trailer without human intervention when the job involves taking a trailer from one depot to another, then selecting the correct trailer for the return trip, who opens the doors, or pulls the curtains back for the fork lift driver to be able to tip the thing, too many questions, with no answers imho

 

[icowden]

I cannot for the life of me see how driverless trucks can work, all this driving in convoy rubbish is a red herring, can you imagine the carnage when one of them suffers a blowout or mechanical failure?

Why would there be any carnage? The affected truck would just move to the hard shoulder and send out a distress call, complete with details of the fault.

the real problems start when a delivery has tight. badly placed loading bays, the ones that skilled humans have to do several shunts to access,

Again - robots are better at this than humans and if they have the correct field of vision can pull into tighter spaces.

which loading bay to go to ? how do you instruct a 44 tonne robot such detail,

That has to be worked out with between the logistics company and the company receiving the goods. It might be that having reached the depot, the driverless truck works with a pilot.

wrong delivery address,

Why would you give the wrong delivery address?

then how do you refuel the trampers that are out all week, or even better on continental work,

You plug them in to chargers. They will be electric.

how do they disconnect the trailer without human intervention when the job involves taking a trailer from one depot to another, then selecting the correct trailer for the return trip, who opens the doors, or pulls the curtains back for the fork lift driver to be able to tip the thing, too many questions, with no answers imho

I'm sure all these things will be considered. An autonomous truck doesn't mean human free.

 

[Jenkins]

I have much more confidence in properly developed and tested electronic devices than I do humans.

Being creative, distracted, tired, emotional and misjudging are all inherent in our humanity, which is why such discipline is needed to safely fly a plane, drive a car or ride a bike.

I wonder if this fear of self driving cars reflects our well documented over estimation of our driving skills?

The only problem is that it's humans that do the developing & testing

 

[DRM]

You plug them in to chargers. They will be electric.

Yeah, whatever, latest Volvo's have 178 miles range, that's at best too, they will not all be electric any time soon

 

[DRM]

Why would you give the wrong delivery address?

You've obviously never had to go to business premises where someone gives the accounts address, or there's another warehouse a mile or so further along the industrial estate, and for added fun,it's only manned part time

 

[DRM]

Why would there be any carnage? The affected truck would just move to the hard shoulder and send out a distress call, complete with details of the fault.

Yes, right, when the front tyre blows and drags the whole thing to that side at 56 mph and clips the vehicle in front, or even an offside front tyre pulls it in to other vehicles passing this nose to tail convoy, or god forbid some poor sod broken down on the hard shoulder already

 

[DRM]

Again - robots are better at this than humans and if they have the correct field of vision can pull into tighter spaces.

Parallel parking a car maybe, throw a 40 foot trailer into the mix and see how that goes, especially dodging skips, fences, the wheel guides for the trailer that are sometimes installed, then the gentle bump onto the loading bay, without demolishing the building